Imagine you’re throwing a surprise party for your best friend’s birthday. Or organizing a high-stakes board meeting. Or, like us, hosting a festival for the world’s most beautiful business community. How would you make sure your gathering was everything it could be?

Rule №1 

Give Your Gathering a Purpose

“Going with the flow and catering to everyone makes for a fine event, but narrowing your gathering to a specific and unique purpose creates an opportunity to thrill,” Priya Parker suggests. At Between the Two of Us, our purpose is to make sense of the conflicting and often-confusing forces of our polycrisis world, while building community and inspiring hope. These are essential steps in our pursuit of a life-centered economy that honors all life around us and inside us.

Rule №2

Make Purpose Your Bouncer

Priya is a proponent of “generous exclusion,” which means bounding a gathering in a way that heightens diversity while ensuring everyone has a common goal. This May in Tangier, at Between the Two of Us, we’ll bring together more than 500 business leaders, scientists, artists, policy-makers, activists, and educators from across the globe. What do we all have in common? We’re tired of today’s bleak, business-as-usual corporate landscape; we have inquisitive minds, big hearts, and a desire to drive real, honest change.

Rule №3

Design Your Invitation to Persuade

“Storytelling helps to guide your guests and explain why you’re asking them to meet in this way. Done well, it’s an opening argument to persuade,” Priya says. With Between the Two of Us, our story began with a personal letter to Tangier by House co-founder Tim Leberecht, who was enchanted by the city after spending time there last summer. Read his letter here to share in our excitement.

Rule №4

Create an Alternative World

The New Rules of Gathering allows for “pop-up” rules, which let the host(s) temporarily change the law of the land in order to create special bonded moments. At the House, we’re no stranger to spicing things up (with outlandish social experiments and intimate silent dinners). Our 2024 festival will be no exception. Forget name tags, slide decks, and live streams, and get ready for fierce debates, bold discussions, breathtaking performances, and immersive experiences for body, heart, and mind. Find the full program here.

Rule №5

Close with Intention

“Endings are a reminder of why you gathered in the first place, and give guests a chance to make sense of the time they spent together,” Priya writes. In Tangier, Priya will put this principle into action. At an outdoor theater beside Cape Spartel, the lighthouse that marks the border between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Priya will wrap up our four-day program with a discussion about creating meaning and cultivating community in a world at a crossroads. We can’t wait for you to experience it.